Comcast pays the city 40 cents per customer each month for the right to lay line in Albuquerque. The cash goes to fund public, educational or government stations—like public access channel 27 and Encantada TV channel 26. The cable board oversees those funds. But it didn’t have a say in who would be awarded the contract for those channels—and that’s something Martin Ethridgehill, chairman of the cable board, would like to rectify.

So in early January, the board reviewed the applications from QUQ and uPUBLIC, and voted unanimously to back QUQ.

In an unprecedented move, the Cable Franchise and Hearing Board stepped into the fray over who will operate the city's public access TV channels. With a unanimous vote on Thursday, Jan. 5, the board backed Quote ... Unquote, Inc., the nonprofit that ran the channels for three decades before losing its contract.